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Not many people know that Ivy Tech has a basketball team. Even fewer know that our basketball team won the 2010 NCCS Regional and National championships! The NCCS, or National Campus Championship Series is part of the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association. Ivy Tech has grown in recent years, and has recently started competing against 4-year schools, such as Wabash, Rose Hulman, and Franklin.

I watched the Ivy Tech Bears compete at the Ivy Tech Statewide Basketball Tournament on February 12th where they competed against Ivy Tech teams from other regions of Indiana. They played tough for almost 8 hours in an elimination tournament. They made it all the way to the final game when they fell short 3 points to Ivy Tech Richmond. The final score of the nail-biter was 79-82.

They also play on Thursday nights at 9:00 p.m. through April 21st at The Fieldhouse in Fishers, 11825 Technology Drive. They will also be competing in the ACIS National Tournament at North Carolina State University April 8-10.The Ivy Tech Bears have also won 2 Sportsmanship Awards from the ACIS (American Collegiate Intramural Sports).

Intramural sports adds a sense of team comradery and school spirit, builds leadership skills and strengthens both body and mind. Playing sports can be a fun way to build lasting friendships and memories. For more information on the NIRSA or the ACIS intramural programs, visit http://www.NIRSA.org and http://www.ACIS.org.

2011 Ivy Tech Bears

Number
Name
Position*

Greg LeighHead Coach

Brandon AdamsManager

Nathan BrickerManager
0
Bret Cothron

1
Ramon Hogue
Captain
2
Jonathan Bridgeforth

4
Edwin McDuffee

5
Braden Schuster

10
Daniel Lucas

11
Marquez Morse

12
Jeremy Bricker

15
Anthony Eagan

23
Keaton Aldridge

32
Calvin White

34
Jeremy Woodford
Captain

42
Joshua Mills

50
Jamaal Pittman

*most positions are interchangeable

Coach Gregory Leigh

Gregory Leigh is the head coach of the Ivy Tech Men’s Basketball team. He is also a professor of computer information technology. One cold, gray afternoon in February, I had the opportunity to sit and talk with Coach Leigh about his team, his teaching career, and life outside of Ivy Tech. What I learned is that he is a native Hoosier who has lived here most of his life, except for about 18 months when he lived in Dallas after graduating college. Leigh earned a bachelors degree in accounting and a masters in adult education from Indiana University. “I also played intramural basketball and football at I.U.,” he said.

Coach Leigh started out at Ivy Tech teaching accounting and computer information technology. Shortly after, a new opportunity came along and Professor Greg Leigh became Coach Greg Leigh. “I started off as the Assistant Coach for two years and have been Head Coach for the past 5 years.” He relinquished his duty of teaching accounting in order to commit more to his basketball team. He still teaches computer information technology. Although his biological parents did not raise him, they do play a big part of his life. “Both of my biological parents teach, and they’re a big inspiration to me,” he said.

Outside of teaching and coaching at Ivy Tech, Greg Leigh enjoys traveling, sports, and movies. “The last good movie I saw was ‘The Fighter’,” he told me. “I also love the sand, ocean and sun.” He also enjoys playing Texas Hold ‘Em poker. Coach Greg Leigh is animated on the court, always smiling, and enjoys simple relaxation on his down time. I look forward to getting to know him and his team better through another exciting season.

This semester The Center for Community and Culture Studies has delivered four enlightening afternoons of conversation or testimony to Ivy Tech. The series has brought impressive speakers to the North Meridian campus over the past ten weeks discussing topics that range from the local arts to testimony on over coming great hardship and from the importance of eating healthily and locally to the need for political civility.

The Center for Community and Culture Studies had its first event of the semester Friday February 18 in room T135, as Ivy Tech was host to Travis DiNicola, Executive Director of Indy Reads and Producer/ Co-Host of “The Art of the Matter” on WFYI radio. Though free soft drinks were offered to those who attended, it was obvious that the soft drinks weren’t the reason for the crowd.

At noon when the conversation began Ivy Tech staff was still bringing in loose chairs to line the sides of the room for those that weren’t content to stand in the back. What followed was roughly twenty minutes of DiNicola talking about local art, which he referred to as “not so much about what it is, but what it does. Art gives you the opportunity to look at the world as others see it.”

He talked about his past at Penn State University, as well as his concerns over public schools cutting funding for the arts in school, reading part of a presentation he gave to the Indiana State Senate. DiNicola went over an admittedly brief history of the arts in the United States, beginning by mentioning the first Crystal Palace Fair in 1851 and President Kennedy’s Amherst speech in 1963, where Kennedy spoke about the importance of poetry, as well as other forms of art.

After finishing that, the afternoon moved onto another phase of the conversation. Professor Alfonzo Adkins, who is the faculty member in charge of the Speakers Series, had prepared a series of questions for DiNicola. Among Adkins’ queries were interrogatives about the responsibility of Ivy Tech to the local arts and art’s impact on Indianapolis specifically.

After about fifteen minutes of conversation between Adkins and DiNicola the floor was opened to questions from the audience. Several students and faculty posed questions, some about the way that art is perceived, others asking for advice on how to encourage people to stay curious about local art itself.

The second event which was held Friday February 18, 2011 had a greater since of formality as Ivy Tech hosted Rose Mapendo, named 2009’s Humanitarian of the Year by the United Nation’s Commissioner of Refugees.

Mapendo opened her talk by singing a song in her native language she sang every night while imprisoned in a death camp. By the time she concluded her song, which asked for guidance and strength from God, she was in tears. Attempting to dry her eyes, she began to tell her story, though tears lingered throughout her 25 minute testimonial.

Mapendo and her husband were living in The Democratic Republic of Congo in 1998 when Rwandan troops invaded. In response to the invasion, the Congo’s president declared certain ethnic groups to be the enemy. Mapendo’s ethnic group was among those named.

Due to Mapendo’s ethnicity her family was targeted by the military. The military murdered her husband, leaving her alone with 8 children, including one that was still breast feeding.

To make matters worse, it wasn’t long until she realized she was pregnant with twins. In captivity she was far from taken care of. She gave birth to two premature boys on the concrete floor of her jail cell, naming them after the two men who murdered her husband in a showing of forgiveness. Remarkably, all of her children, including the two boys born in the death camp, survived being held captive.

Rose Mapendo was presented with a certificate of appreciation by Ivy Tech’s Liberal Arts and Sciences department, as well as a certificate commemorating her world-wide work given by Mayor Ballard’s office at the conclusion of her testimony and then spent time meeting and conversing with students and staff from Ivy Tech.

The Third showing made by the Center for Community and Culture Studies was March 4, 2011 in T135. Though attendance of the event may have been slightly stunted by March 4th being the last day before spring break, the conversation that took place did not disappoint. Laura Henderson and Kellie Welborn were featured speakers, leading a discussion on eating healthy from local farms, a perfect way to kick off National Nutrition Month in March.

Laura Henderson’s interest in the effects of food on individuals and their communities has developed as she spent time living in Australia, Europe, and toured parts of Europe and Africa. Since moving back to Indiana she has gotten involved in the Slow Food Movement and opened the Indy Winter Farmers Market in November of 2008. This winter the market was able to give a forum for more than 60 area growers to sell their goods to more than 1,000 people attending the market each week. In 2009 Henderson followed that effort up by founding Growing Places Indy, which began with a garden at White River State Park, in an effort to help create a culture that can sustain itself with food and agriculture.

Kellie Welborn is working on a documentary film about the current state of Indiana’s family farms. Her goal: to get the word out on many of the successful tactics Indiana farmers are using to sustain their farms and foster awareness and the demand for their products.

Together they made strides to share information with the students and staff that participated in the conversation, promoting CSA’s (Community Supported Agriculture) which deliver fresh grown produce to your doorstep and talking about Five Ways to eat local.

1. Grow your own garden

2. Shop at local farmers markets

3. Join a CSA

4. Seek out a grocer that sells local products

5. Eat at locally based restaurants.

The final event of the Series was held Monday April 11 just after 12:30pm in room T135. Jim Shella, WISH-TV chief political reporter was on hand to discuss “Civility in Politics and Life,” a fitting topic given our countries current political atmosphere where political parties are walking out on the legislative process, and perhaps more partisan than ever.

Shella is the moderator of “Indiana Week in Review,” a weekly program that recaps the political news in our state. He said that civility is always something he tries to maintain on his set, mentioning that sometimes cable news programs don’t try to do this the way they should. One of the more amusing things he talked about was the need for politicians to compromise, referring to a Rolling Stones lyric. (You can’t always get what you want
but if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need.)

Shella cited how much the political landscape in the state had changed while he had worked for WISH-TV referring to the 1984 race for governor as the last election in the state that didn’t utilize negative campaign adds out of fear of back lash. He also said that his job itself had changed. Now all of his political stories are online instead of just broadcasting them to the television viewers. However, it would be a matter of an opinion whether more political content in cyberspace is a positive or a negative.

Without a doubt this semester’s speaker series has been a success. Regardless of the topic for the day, the students at Ivy Tech were given an opportunity to share the room with incredible and inspirational speakers. If you missed the series this semester you should stay tuned in the fall.